Debt
by wndrw8
Summary: To the rest of the world he is a monster criminal. To her he is a good man that she doesn't deserve. Talia/Bane


_His only crime was that he loved me._

* * *

Talia feels it growing stronger as the days pass. The guilt. The doubt. She wonders where Bane would be now if it wasn't for her. She knows if it wasn't for her he would've stayed tucked away in that hell in the middle of the Earth, but that's not enough. She could've set him free somewhere along the way. She could've spared him some pain. Couldn't she?

This realization—his face across the television, the scars, the mask, the memories—they eat away at her. The debt slowly destroys her.

Because owing someone your life and more is not an easy burden to carry.

* * *

Gotham is under siege for roughly five months.

She slips away at night sometimes to see him and touch him. His skin marred, rough under her soft flesh, the heavy breaths he sucks in whenever his eyes catch hers. The mask disperses the smell of plastic and alcohol. Like he is living off a constant supply of vaporized whiskey and she supposes it is best this way.

The closer it gets to day zero, the more painful it is to look at him.

"Why are you still here?" she asks him one night. It is late and the moon is obscured by a mist that hangs over the bay. "This is my mission."

"What's yours is mine."

"Is it?"

She can hear his hulking body as it stiffens. Respectful, almost… cowing in her presence. She is thankful for this side of him but she also hates it. She hates that he loves her so much. She hates how gentle he is with her.

I am a murderer and criminal, she wants to scream at him. Treat me as such.

But he would never treat her badly. He would never lay a hand on her and it only serves to intensify the guilt.

Talia pushes a strand of hair out of her face. Her fingers are trembling, the skin on her face coated in a light sheen of perspiration. She shudders, aches from the inside out. The debt weakens her. It boils within her.

"You should hate me," she finally says.

Her words are choked, thick with emotion and it is so unlike either of them.

She hears him shuffling forward. The sound of the mask, the god awful machine, it rasps in her ears as his hands settle heavily on her shoulders.

"I could never hate you, Tali."

"Because you are weak."

His hands tense. "Not weak. Dedicated."

She lets a dry chuckle escape her lips, half coughing, half sobbing and turns to face him in the milky moonlight that pours down from the window. They are at the top of a building in a room that's been raged against. Pieces of broken furniture line the carpet and broken paintings lay at a tilt in their hinges. His body presses into hers but she maintains her position. "You should have left years ago. Now you will die with everyone else."

"I will die with you."

"You will die alone and so will I."

His breathing changes again and he tilts his chin up a bit. He towers over her; he could tear her apart with his pinky finger but has never.

The few times they have been naked and flush against one another he has been slow and gentle. Patient, kind, sensitive. She hates him more for it.

Talia shifts. "What if I told you to leave tonight? What then?"

"I couldn't."

"I could kill you."

"Would you?"

She shakes her head. "My loyalty is only to my father."

"You," Bane chuckles, "are a woman of action. Your father was only a man of ideas. He could never even get them off paper—"

The sound of her open palm against his cheek cuts him off but Bane merely grunts. The force is barely enough to startle him.

Talia feels her breath coming, uneven, inside her chest. Why is she pushing him like this? After all he's done, all he's endured… She wants him to be rough with her. She wants him to break her so she can stop feeling so guilty all the time.

His eyes peer down at her, mere slits.

She pushes against him and her fist flies up, balled, knuckles out, striking him in the side of the head. Then it moves to his chest, to his sides, a rapid succession of three that would put most men on the ground but he just stands there, staring at her. She knees him in the stomach. Desperate. Then her fist is aiming for the mask but before he can tilt his head to the side, she's caught it and one of the screws comes loose. She's about to knock it completely out when a giant hand latches to her wrist, stifling her. She jerks.

His other hand moves to tighten the screw back in place, then catches her left jab inches from his face. His fingers are gentle, still. Talia hears her own growl echoing off the walls of the abandoned room.

She moistens her lips.

To the rest of the world he is a monster criminal. To her he is a good man that she doesn't deserve.

"Hit me," she begs. She pleads. "Make me bleed."

But he shakes his head, like always, and then she is screaming, thrashing against him because she can't take this anymore—she can never repay him or hurt the way he's hurt for her and it's the only thing in life she hasn't been able to fix her way.

Talia will die with his service weighing heavily on her heart.

Caged by kindness.

She swipes at his face, nails missing the skin by centimeters. She twists, torques her body, spits at him. "You stupid fuck," she finally growls. "Take me. Is that not what you've always wanted? Since the beginning?"

His blood thrums beneath her.

"In The Pit… all you ever wanted was to fuck me, wasn't it? So do it! You know that no other woman will touch you, not with that horrible mas—"

The back of his hand comes down against her cheek.

Knuckles to her soft flesh, she bleeds. It rattles her bones. She shakes and her breath catches in her throat. She underestimated the power of his hand.

"I could have any woman I want," Bane says. He breathes loudly. "But that is not the point."

Talia tries to strike him again but he deflects her blows. Then he hits her in the face, aims at her stomach until she is doubled over. Her chest is wheezing now. She sobs quietly as his fingers bruise the flesh in her arms, spinning her so his chest is to her back. A vice grip, she can't move.

He drags her over to a dusty radiator and forces her to bend over it.

Her cheek scrapes against metal. She struggles. His hand grips her neck and slams her head down against the jagged surface until her body flattens against it. Talia spits a string of blood as her legs are pushed apart.

"Bane," she whispers.

She is tired of them. Of everything.

They both are.

He uses one hand to pin her arms above her head, her ass quivering into his crotch, and the other lowers the zipper to her jeans, ripping the material down her legs until she's bare cheeked and can feel his erection throbbing against her.

Her muscles shake. He unzips himself and when her body gives out beneath him, he lets go of her arms and grabs her hips with both hands. His breath is rapid, uneven in the broken night. It cascades across the room in waves.

With the first thrust he lifts her hips off the metal surface and slams her aching body down around him. She's wet, but tight, and screams in pain. He tears her in half. His dick twitches inside her before withdrawing and then forcing her down around his erection again.

He hisses. Maybe the sound of satisfaction, or maybe just the mask.

Talia feels herself stretching to accommodate him. Her hips twist to try to find a more comfortable angle but immediately his forearm is pressing hard against her middle back, sucking the air from her lungs and crushing her ribs. She falls still as he thrusts again. Then his hand comes up to fondle her breast, his thumb dancing over an erect nipple before moving so he is cupping her chin.

His hand crushes her jaw. Talia tastes blood. "You still want me to leave?" he rasps.

She can't move. She can barely breathe.

He shakes her again and pain spasms through the back of her neck. She licks her lips, lets her muscles go loose.

"No," she whispers.

"I can't hear you."

"No." Her voice breaks. "Don't leave. I need you. Please…"

She is weak because of him, weak without him and so is he.

His right arm tears away the fabric of her shirt. He unclasps her bra and her breasts sway as he thrusts two more times, then comes inside her.

Her skin ripples with a chill from the window. Once Bane's breathing has evened out, he turns her around so they are facing. Her cheeks are stained with blood and tears. Her lips are burning. His eyes flash, cold and black in one moment, then full of sorrow in the next.

He traces one breast with his forefinger before wrapping his arms around her and pressing her close to his chest.


End file.
